Crosby v. State

OPINION OF THE COURT

This appeal presents for our determination the issue of whether section 24 of the Workers’ Compensation Law, requiring that attorneys’ fees sought in connection with a claim arising under that law must be approved by the Workers’ Compensation Board, violates a claimant’s constitutional rights to due process or equal protection. We hold today that this reasonable regulation of the payment of attorneys’ fees, enacted for the protection of the claimant, suffers no such constitutional infirmity.

Plaintiff’s claim for workers’ compensation benefits arose out of an injury she sustained on April 11, 1979, during the course of her employment. Proceeding pro se initially, plaintiff received an award of benefits covering the period from the injury until the hearing. No further payments were to be made, however, until claimant sub

A second hearing was held on June 3, 1980, at which plaintiff’s attorney failed to appear. Following this hearing, the compensation carrier was ordered to pay plaintiff further benefits. The carrier has appealed that decision to the Workers’ Compensation Board and has suspended payments to plaintiff pending the outcome of the appeal. Plaintiff sought to engage a new attorney to represent her on this appeal and contacted an Ithaca attorney for this purpose. This attorney agreed to represent plaintiff, and, having estimated the time that would be involved in preparing for and attending the appeal, informed plaintiff that he would require a retainer of $300, to be deposited in his trust account pending the outcome of the case. Plaintiff agreed to this fee amount and procedure.

Thereafter, plaintiff’s attorney filed a notice of substitution and appearance form with the Workers’ Compensation Board. He advised the board, in an accompanying letter, that plaintiff had agreed to deposit the sum of $300 with him, to be held in trust and applied to any fee subsequently approved by the board. The board then informed the attorney that the fee arrangement was not in accordance with board procedure and advised him to return plaintiff’s deposit and make application for his fee in the prescribed manner.

Plaintiff then commenced the instant action, seeking a judgment declaring the fee restrictions unconstitutional because they effectively prevent her from retaining skilled legal counsel of her choice to pursue her compensation claim. Defendant’s motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint was granted by Special Term. The Appellate Division modified the judgment, to the extent only of adding a provision declaring that section 24 of the Workers’ Compensation Law is constitutional.

At the outset, we reject plaintiff’s arguments insofar as they are predicated upon the due process and equal protection guarantees contained in the Constitution of this State (NY Const, art I, §§ 6, 11). Any notion that these constitutional guarantees place limitations upon the legislative authority to enact laws concerning workers’ compensation is completely dispelled by another provision of the Constitution. Section 18 of article I, insofar as it is here relevant, provides that: “Nothing contained in this constitution shall be construed to limit the power of the legislature to enact laws for the protection of the lives, health, or safety of employees; or for the payment, either by employers, or by employers and employees or otherwise * * * of compensation for injuries to employees or for death of employees resulting from such injuries”. The statute challenged herein plainly falls within this constitutional provision. It is well recognized that section 18 of article I itself lays to rest all State constitutional attacks on the workers’ compensation laws falling within its scope (Koutrakos v Long

Plaintiff urges that section 24, in limiting her ability to choose an attorney on her own terms, violates her constitutional right of privacy by interfering in the “fundamentally private relationship” between attorney and client. In support of her assertion that the statute is an unwarranted governmental interference with her choice of counsel, plaintiff relies upon the affidavits of four attorneys practicing in the Ithaca area. These attorneys state that they will not ordinarily represent claimants in workers’ compensation proceedings, because they are unable to negotiate their fee arrangements privately with the claimants and, in their experience, if fees are approved by the Workers’ Compensation Board at all, they are economically unrewarding. Plaintiff thus argues that the fee limitations effectively operate to preclude her from obtaining skilled legal counsel to pursue her compensation claim and therefore violate her right of privacy.

The “right of privacy” has its roots in the concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon State action embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment (Zablocki v Redhail, 434 US 374 , 384; Roe v Wade, 410 US 113 , 153; Paul v Davis, 424 US 693 , 713). This guarantee recognizes certain “zones of privacy” existing under the Federal Constitution and protects those individual interests which can be said to be “fundamental” or “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty” (Roe v Wade, supra, at p 152 ). Although the precise contours of this right have yet to be defined, it is clear that it has application in two primary areas of personal autonomy: “the individual interest in avoiding disclosure of personal matters”, and “the interest in independence in making certain kinds of important decisions” (Whalen v Roe, 429 US 589 , 599-600). It is this latter interest which plaintiff argues is implicated by the statute’s limitations on fee arrangements between attorney and client.

Section 24 of the Workers’ Compensation Law is part of a broad scheme of economic and social welfare legislation. The challenged classification, burdening no suspect group and affecting no interest deemed fundamental, need only pass the constitutional test of rationality. Thus, the statute will withstand judicial scrutiny if the resulting classification bears a reasonable relationship to some legitimate legislative objective (Vance v Bradley, 440 US 93 , 96-97; Dandridge v Williams, 397 US 471 , 485; People v Whidden, 51 NY2d 457 , 460; Alevy v Downstate Med. Center of State of N. Y., 39 NY2d 326 , 332).

The broad scheme of compensation for work-related injuries or death contained in the Workers’ Compensation Law has as its purpose the provision of a swift and sure source of benefits to injured employees or the dependents of deceased employees (Matter of Burns v Miller Constr., 55 NY2d 501 ; Billy v Consolidated Mach. Tool Corp., 51 NY2d 152 , 158; O’Rourke v Long, 41 NY2d 219 , 222). The compensation law was intended to obviate, among other things, the delay and expense to the claimant caused by the protracted litigation involved in pursuing a negligence claim (Shanahan v Monarch Eng. Co., 219 NY 469 , 477-478, supra). That such relief is a legitimate legislative objective hardly need be stated. Section 24, with its restrictions on fee arrangements between the claimant and counsel, is similarly designed for the protection of the injured employee or his dependents. The purpose of the restrictions being to protect the claimant from entering into an improvident fee

We note, finally, that to the extent plaintiff has demonstrated that at least some attorneys will not undertake claimants’ compensation cases because of the fee restrictions, she has identified a problem that is the proper concern of the Legislature. If it is true, as plaintiff asserts, that the intent of the Legislature to protect claimants is not accomplished by the provisions of section 24, then the wisdom of the statute may be in some doubt, but such a deficiency may not properly be remedied by the courts (see Pharmaceutical Mfrs. Assn. v Whalen, 54 NY2d 486 ).

Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed, without costs.

Chief Judge Cooke and Judges Jasen, Jones, Wachtler, Fuchsberg and Meyer concur.

Order affirmed.